Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

1 review

nmcannon's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

My journey to this book is a little kooky (it involves an RPF vampire visual novel), but I made it. And got my mind blown in the bargain!

Since it would have helped past me, here’s a run down on Ningen Shikkaku VS No Longer Human VS A Shameful Life. Arguably Dazai-san’s most famous work, Ningen Shikkaku was first published in 1948. The author died soon after, so he didn’t live to see his work become one of the bestselling books in Japan. In 1958, scholar Donald Keene translated and published Ningen Shikkaku to American audiences. Keene’s translation is seen as the definitive one and probably what one would see in a bookstore. The phrase “ningen shikkaku” literally translates to “disqualified from being human,” and Keene translated this phrase to the more stylistic “no longer human.” Under the title No Longer Human, this book has been adapted to many, many mediums, including live-action films, anime, animated movies, and manga.

Keene’s translation is also HELLA popular at my local library, like all of Dazai-san’s works. I could wait 8 holds deep, or read Mark Gibeau’s lesser known 2018 translation, A Shameful Life. In the back matter, Gibeau explains that he and some grad students were at a bar one night and decided, for fun, to translate Ningen Shikkaku’s delicate, winding sentences. In true Dazai-san fashion, what started as a drunk game became a serious endeavor. Gibeau positions his translation not in competition, but in conversation with Donald Keene’s—and to avoid confusion, he chose a different title.

No matter the translation, the protagonist and plot remain. An unknown person finds three journals and photos of Ōba Yōzō. Like footage meant to be found, Ōba wrote the journals to record and reveal his true, terror-stricken personality behind his mask of class clown. The autobiography goes from his childhood to late twenties. He has various misadventures, including failing out of university, becoming a popular cartoonist, joining the forbidden Communist party, suffering from addiction, and having various affairs with women. Throughout, Ōba feels intense alienation from other people and struggles to figure out the “rules” of existence. He mimics other people’s behavior and makes them laugh—but inwardly feels lonely and miserable.

If the plot summary seems brief, it’s because the plot isn’t the focus of the novel. I read A Shameful Life in one sitting, and by the end my mind was aswirl with names, places, feelings, images, and self-imposed wretchedness. Instead of everyday mundanities, Dazai-san intensely focuses on Ōba’s inner world. Sometimes I wonder how many of Ōba’s problems would disappear if he rolled in the mud for a bit. Get out of your brain, boy! It sucks in there, with all the depression, alcoholism, and addiction. More seriously, reading was like looking in a fun house mirror for me. My brain is also a sucky place to live sometimes.

To add another mirror, Ōba acts an anthropologist of his own life, trying to figure out “humanity,” just like a teenage me (and, interestingly, Nell in The Haunting of Hill House). How does one define “humanity” as a concept? I cheered when Ōba realized that society isn’t a punishing monolith so much as individuals within society acting cruelly. Probably because I’ve had these thoughts before, I didn’t find the novel depressing so much as intriguing. The most bleh part was Ōba’s dismissive treatment of the women around him.

I haven’t read much Japanese literature, besides manga. I want to explore more! A Shameful Life is a rich body of work, and I could viscerally feel my lack of ability to dissect it. Gibeau’s afterward explained the i-novel and authentic novel movements, which was great. I got the main theme about the impossibility of understanding and being understood, of truly knowing another. But there’s so much more! I can tell why universities have entire classes on Dazai-san’s books.

A Shameful Life easily earns 5 stars, and I may be a Dazai-san fangirl now.
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